Knowledge and Understanding
by Little-Firestar84
Summary: Maybe, Just maybe... she could help him out, get him to understand. Because he couldn't ask Ollie, and even if he did, he wasn't sure his friend would answer.


Despite what people tended to believe, Tommy wasn't an idiot. He was still able to do 2+2, so, after discovering that Ollie was the Vigilante, it didn't take him long to get to another certain detail- the blonde always at Ollie's side, who appeared at Verdant like from thin air and who had been around even when Ollie was behaving like the womanizer he used to be-despite not being his type at all.

So, yes-non stupid, plus miss Blondie, added to Ollie being the Arrow… she worked for him, definitely. (Well, both of him, actually.)

He was tempted to scream and shout at her, and if he had been a lesser gentleman (because he was a gentleman, when he wanted to be) he would have slapped her. She seemed nice and smart, and he couldn't understand why she was working with…_him. _He needed to get the why: because if she was doing it on her own accord, maybe, just maybe… It meant that Ollie wasn't such a monster.

He approached her one evening, when the club had already closed. She was sitting at the bar, drinking red wine and looking at her tablet; she readjusted her glasses on her nose, and he felt like smiling. Yes, Felicity was younger than them, but she seemed even younger than that. His mind went back to many years priors, when he had been still a kid with both his loving parents, and had wished for a baby sister to fight for a valiantly defend.

In his mind, she had always been blonde with blue eyes (even if both his parents had dark hair) and glasses and had pink dresses like some kind of fairy-tale princess.

Also, in his mind, he would have defended her from Ollie's charm, because she would have been just charming and funny and lovable and had all the guys falling at her feet, and Tommy had the impression that Felicity too needed defending from the Arrow. Just not like the criminals of the city. Just not like Laurel and Sarah and the sister of his childish dreams.

So, he went at her side, and once her glass was empty, he refilled it. asking simply. "Rough day?"

She answered that yes, it had been, and then she looked at the guy in front of her, biting her lips. Tommy, again, reminded himself that he wasn't an idiot, and understood that a)the problem was Ollie/Arrow related and b)she didn't know if she could talk with him.

So, Tommy took the reins of the conversation- because God knew if he didn't need someone to talk about this whole mess, and if she wanted to listen, and maybe talk too… well, what was that old saying, catching two birds with one stone? Yeah. Definitely his point- They _both _needed someone to talk to, and they both didn't have anyone to talk to. Despite each other.

"I just… I just would like for him to talk with me." he simply said, and in that few words he meant everything: about his "stunt" with Sara, about his dad and the Island, and about what he had become and _why. _

"Yeah, I know" Felicity grunted. "I mean, I'm not saying I want to know, like, everything, but considering that I am helping him out, and well, we are both co-conspirators as we both know who he is, but we are not talking to the police… I think he could just say a word every now and then, right? And instead, he just glares and talk with his Arrow voice… not that you know anything about his Arrow voice, except you did, but he was the Arrow in that moment and not Oliver. Not that they are two different persons, because they aren't, and of course you know it because he told you so when he unmasked when he saved your father and, sorry, I'll stop talking in 3, 2, 1…" she closed her eyes, feeling like crushing her head against the bar.

He smiled, and offered her his hand. He hadn't laughed in a long time, since he had discovered of the Arrow, abandoned Laurel and came back to his dad, and it felt good. "Tommy Merlyn, hi"

"Oh, yes, I know. I mean, you are always around Oliver, well, were, and also on magazines. Not that I read gossip magazines…" he lifted his eyebrows, smirking. "Not that there's anything wrong with reading them, if you happen to read them. Not that I know if you do, because it's not like I checked your accounts and see what you and your father were up to and if there were… any…illegal…activities." She took back her hand, and looked at the floor. "Felicity Smoak, nice to meet you, Mr. Merlyn."

And even if she had been checking them out- under Ollie's orders, probably- he couldn't help but laugh, a belly laughter that he couldn't control, and without even knowing why she was doing it… she joined him.

"Oh, God, now I know why Ollie keeps you around…"

"Nah, it's because of my talented hands…" she said, moving her fingers in the air; then, she understood how it sounded like, and that her filter had again malfunctioned. "Not that… computer. I use my hands on a computer. Not for indecent things! Not that there's nothing wrong if you have a porn video or two going around… not that I know anything about it… but, you know, breaking the law here, so, no judgment, all right? If there is something to judge at all. Witch I am sure there's not, because…"

"3,2,1,?" Tommy asked, and she smiled, stopped talking and tanked him.

They spent the rest of the night in complete silence, until Felicity didn't call Ollie on a tip, and she left, back in Verdant's underground- at least now he knew where Ollie hid. He didn't think anything about it anymore, until, a couple of weeks later, she called him out of the blue, and she talked and talked and talked.

"It's just that, I don't really have anyone to call at the end of the day, because I can't tell anyone of what we are doing. And I know that Ollie tells that I should call him, but c'mon, how I am supposed to? Talk with Oliver when I want to broke Oliver's neck because he has been an idiot? Not that I could actually break his neck, but, you know…"

They talked-actually, Felicity did, for hours, and when she hung up it was already morning. He was starting to get Ollie, but there was so much eh still didn't understand, still didn't know- but the same went for the rest of his "team Arrow, as Felicity called it.

And anyway… now he wasn't alone any longer. And if and when he needed to talk… she was going to be there.

It was a start. As good as any.


End file.
